Novel 1966 - Kilrone (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page B

sorry she had said it. “The only one I know of, that is. He might lend you his.”
    “I didn’t want one right now. I was just curious.” He had started away but suddenly he turned back. “Do you know Medicine Dog?” he asked.
    There was no visible change in her expression, but he knew at once that she did know him. Her manner was suddenly wary, her eagerness to be away was obvious.
    “Medicine Dog,” Kilrone said, “is borrowing trouble for himself and his people. I wish he was half as bright as Chief Washakie.”
    “Do you know Washakie?”
    “I know him. I have eaten in his lodge. I have smoked the pipe with him. He is a good man who will do well for his people.”
    She made no reply, and tipping his hat he went on to the sutler’s store.
    Hopkins, the sutler, was putting together several sacks of food and ammunition. He glanced up when Kilrone entered. “If you want anything,” he said, “find it and bring it up to me.” Then realizing that Kilrone was a stranger, he said, “You must be the man who brought the news. Too bad…there were good men in I Troop. And Webb…I won’t say the man knew much about Indians, but he was a good commander. He kept the post in shape.”
    Hopkins looked around. “Mary!” he called, then turning back to Kilrone, he said, “I wonder where that girl got to?”
    “I saw her down by the corrals.”
    “Mary? What in God’s name would she be doing down there?” he exclaimed.
    Kilrone went behind the counter and hunted out a couple of boxes of shells, considered a moment, and added two more. The chances were that there would be plenty of army ammunition but he had no wish to run short. He added to the ammunition several shirts, handkerchiefs, and odds and ends of clothing.
    When he had bundled up the lot he paid for it and went to the door. There he paused, looking up the parade ground. Two women were walking toward Headquarters building, each carrying a bundle.
    “It looks as if there might be mineral in those hills,” he commented. “Is there much prospecting going on?”
    “Here and there.”
    “When this is over I may have a try at it. I hear that the fellow who owns the Empire prospects a little.”
    Hopkins gave him a cynical look. “If you can call riding around over the country in a buckboard prospecting, he does it. Oh, he comes in with some samples now and again, but he never looks as if he’s done any serious digging. I never even seen him with his hands dirty.”
    “Maybe he doesn’t stay out long. I knew an old boy down state who used to go out, find a nice steady place, and curl up for a sleep. It was the only way he could get away from his wife.”
    Hopkins grinned. “Sproul doesn’t have a wife. No, he doesn’t stay out long. Overnight, usually. Maybe he just wants to get away from the Empire. It’s a noisy place.”
    Kilrone took his bundle and started up the street. Glancing toward the corrals, he saw no sign of Mary Tall Singer.
    He had learned a little. Iron Dave Sproul did not take his prospecting very seriously, and it was he who drove a buckboard, accounting for the tracks over in the Santa Rosas. Suddenly he wanted very much to back-track that buckboard to see just where it stopped. Without a doubt Iron Dave was up to his old tricks of peddling rifles and whiskey to the Indians, but to prove it would not be easy. How many lives, both Indian and white, had already been lost due to Sproul’s activities?
    The rain continued. It fell softly, whispering against the barrack walls and falling gently upon the ground where the troops had paraded before they marched off…I Troop to die, M Troop to what destiny? That was the thing about being a soldier—he never knew when the band played and the girls waved the troop good-bye whether he would ride back or not. He never knew if this good-bye was his last, but there was something about it, something bold and strong that made a man feel his strength, and so he rode and was glad to ride, although